Adam Pearlman was born to Jewish parents and raised on a California goat farm.
Then he changed his religion.Ā He becameĀ a Muslim. Then he changed his name, to Adam Gadahn.
After all that, he joined a terrorist cult.
And in January, he was killed by an American drone strike. It apparently wasn’t planned, but he’s dead nonetheless. Americans — other than his family — shouldn’t be shedding a tear over this man’s death.
Count me as one American who scores his death as a victory in our war against international terrorism.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/al-qaeda-adam-gadahn-isis-rebirth-americans-recruited-to-isil-117285.html?hp=t1_r#.VTmsfFJ0yt8
Gadahn was killed in a drone strike that reportedly also killed two hostages, and American and an Italian. For those two men’s deaths, President Obama rightly apologized “on behalf of the U.S. government.”
Gadahn, though, is a different matter. As some Texans might say, “He needed killin’.”
And yet, civil libertarians — and I count myself as one of them — keep arguing that the United States shouldn’t kill Americans without giving them due process.
I am prepared to argue that these terrorists no longer qualify as deserving equal protection under the laws of the land. They forgo those protections the moment they take up arms with an enemy forces hell bent on killing Americans or any other innocent victims.
Gadahn had forsaken his rights as a citizen when he decided to join al-Qaeda. He had turned his back on his country by becoming a spokesman for the late Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, the monsters who plotted the 9/11 attacks and, thus, fired the first shot in what’s become known as the “global war on terrorism.”
Yes, we should mourn the deaths of innocent victims. I join those in grieving for the loss of the American and Italian hostages who were held captive by al-Qaeda.
But for the man formerly known as Adam Pearlman? I won’t grieve for a single moment.